Cycle of Fear

Whilst staying at my friends place for the week I decided to go for a bike ride along Los Angeles river.
I was using my friend Rena's bike which is pretty much a girl's bike with a big basket at the front.

This was bike with special brakes as in it didn't seem to have any. When i started off on the street (on the wrong side of the road I'll point out) I tried to grab the handlebars where  the brakes should have been and there were none! Instead you have to pedal backwards in order for the brakes to work! I did not like this.
Anyway I road along the road and found the entrance to the lane. Switched on my itouch and pedaled.
I passed many serious cyclist on the lane (actually they passed me) and i didn't mind if they laughed at me on my girly bike. I was on a nice afternoon out. After nearly running over a squirrel 3miles later i reached on end of the lane. I then turned around and headed back.
This was after a near death experience when I went down the steep verge back through the gate which lead straigh to the edge of the river and forgot how to use my new brakes.
I also saw that someone had set up a home in the middle of the river

Part of the way back I needed a little toilet stop so on my way back I saw some cubicles so vered off the lane and rode into the car park and up to the cubicles.
However I noticed some men 'hanging around' the cubicles. Strange I thought. Two were oldish and there was another round the other side on his own. By now it was too late anyway I neeeded to go. So there I was little Jeremy pulling up on his dainty girly bike to what now looked like a cottaging centre. I can imagine they saw me as pulling up and ringing my bell singing 'la la la - oh I need to use one of these cubilces - hello boys - ooh there's no lock on this one - anyone could come in' (there was no lockon the one I used).
After peeing at the rate of 40 knots I got back on my bike and gave them all a wave and blew them a kiss (not really). However I was tempted to look up 'cottaging areas in LA' on google.

The Beast

The other week I stayed at my friends place for a week whilst they went on holiday. They had a lovely apartment however I had to look after their cat.

I have no experience of looking after a cat. And what was worse was I was not allowed to let the cat out of the apartment. Every day whenever I couldn't see the cat in the apartment I thought 'i've lost the cat' and then had to go around the apartment till I found it.
The cat also took a liking for my socks going for them with it's claws. My socks are always colourful or patterned so I had to start wearing my Who Converse. This had the same effect with colours and laces so I had to revert back to leather boots.
I think the fact that the cat was black as well added to my fear of it. Have you seen Sabrina the Teenage witch? That cat can talk!

I left my shampoo in San Francisco

Sorry avid readers for my gap in blogs. I've been busy trying to remember my password for the past month. Today after 1492234 attempts I typed it in correctly. Only after I realized i had my laptop on Caps Lock. I thought there were only so many ways I could type the words Bruce Forsythe.
Anyway I recently went on a trip to San Francisco. We set off early as this was going to be a 6-7 hour drive. I immediately played on my Itouch 'Flickgolf' like a 10 year old would sat ni the back of his parents car (my parents here were Matt and Tita). Although I was good and didn't start asking 'are we there yet' until the 4th hour. I then got told to shut up and 'do you want me to pull over and give you a smack'. Judging by Tita's face she would have left a mark and i would then have enough proof to go to the authorites. So I shut up.

After arriving at Tita's friend place where we were staying we all went out for dinner at  an Italian restaurant that looked like it would feature on 'Ramseys' Kitchen Knightmares'. The exterior looked like it was from the 60's and the interior looked like it was from the 40's.
Here's a nice painting they had up

I did expect to hear Gordon out the back shouting at someone until they cried and had a mental breakdown before storming past me and then being called back by the staff. If only we came after he did one of his makeovers. Anyway I played it safe and had an omlette.

After we saw some bands that evening we decided to go get some breakfast foods for the champions league final the next day

When we met a very nice man - who would have thought it in San francisco?

After this footage he met two girls from earlier in the night and a scream/howl/siren went off like a thousand casts being castrated. Damm it I never get the best bits on film.

The next day we went along haight ashbury for some shopping. After leaving Tita and Matt to meet them in about 20mins the Heavens opened and I stood under a shop canopy for about an hour as I'd looked at everything in the shop and couldn't see another shop to hang about in. So I just stood on the street.

Above is a strange creature I saw who sucked out allthe rubbish from the bin with his large snout.

I was asked later if I took any photos of the area? I asked why I would. It was then pointed out to me that is was a famous street in the 60s/70s - I had no idea though. To me it was a street of shops and mental people.

After more bands in the evening. We retired to our second persons apartment.
Sunday we went down to the beach area to where some old bath remains were and some caves.

Here's me contemplating whether who is better Submariner or Aquaman.


We later went to the piers and found a great arcade museum. I spent the afternoon playing the original Star Wars arcarde game along with the atari grand prix game (both of which i didn't do well in) I think that these games are a lot harder than anything on the x.box.

After this we went to go down Lombard Street which is the windy road as featured in many a film including Bullet. We spent about an hour in a line of cars on a street at an angle of about 90 degrees. I never liked doing hills starts and how Matt managed to start off with out 1) screeching his wheels or 2) rolling back and hitting the car behind. I don't know.
After this we finally started our travel back. This time it felt like i'd been on a flight. I also wanted on occaision when passing a large truck wanted us to pull underneath the truck like in Smokey and the Bandit.
We didn't do this.
Here are some other pics from San fran

Navy Seal Team Six celebrating

Would you believe - Cocktails!